Chapter Text
Quantico. Behavioral Analysis Unit. 2009.
JJ had to make a decision.
Not the big one. Not the one that would take years to name out loud. Just a small, brutal one that lived in her body like a pulse: do it again—or keep pretending she didn’t know what “again” felt like.
The truth was, she hadn’t stopped feeling it after San Francisco.
Henry wasn’t even one when it happened the first time. JJ could still taste hotel air when she thought about it—recycled and too cold, like the building itself was trying to keep them from doing anything human in it. She could still hear Emily’s voice, sharpened down to a blade by grief and fury, pacing the carpet like she wanted to wear a hole through the world.
Trans women were being killed. Dumped. Dehumanized.
Emily hadn’t been able to look away from it. JJ had watched something in her go feral—not in the way the Bureau called feral, but in the way a person went feral when the world reminded them, casually, that it could decide they weren’t allowed to exist.
JJ had said too much that night.
Or maybe she’d finally said the only honest thing.
And Emily had kissed her like permission and punishment in the same breath.
“You sure you want this?” Emily had asked into her mouth—like she needed JJ to say it, like she couldn’t bear the idea of guessing wrong. “This? Along with everything else?”
JJ’s own voice in the memory still sounded like someone she didn’t recognize: stripped down, ragged with relief. “I want this more than everything else.”
That had been the moment the lie stopped being sustainable.
After that, it didn’t matter how many times JJ went home and smiled at Will, or how many times she rocked Henry back to sleep in the dark, whispering the same lullabies like repetition could iron her life flat again.
She could do everything right and still wake up with Emily’s name under her tongue.
It had been a month and JJ still felt it in the quiet moments—the way her body would remember before her mind did. In the elevator. In the hallway. While she was reading a press packet. While she was pumping in a bathroom stall with the lock broken and trying not to cry from the sheer indignity of being a person with needs inside a job that demanded you be a weapon.
She was tired.
Not just new-mother tired. Not just case tired. A deeper tired—the kind that came from living split in two and acting like it wasn’t killing you.
JJ sat at her desk and stared at the glass walls of her office as if they were something she could negotiate with. Outside, the bullpen moved in its usual rhythm: phones ringing, chairs scraping, paper shuffling, people talking about monsters like it was weather.
She could do this part. She could do professional with her spine straight and her voice even and the ring on her finger catching the fluorescent light—the one Will gave her. Not an engagement ring, not technically. Just a ring full of promise nonetheless. Something that said I’m here. I’m yours. I’m trying.
And still, under her blouse, her skin felt too aware of itself.
Her body had changed in the last year in ways she didn’t have words for. Fullness where she’d been lean. Tenderness that came and went with a mind of its own. The strange, private pull of milk letdown at the worst times—like her body couldn’t tell the difference between hunger and hunger.
It made her angry sometimes. It made her soft other times. It made her feel like she’d been claimed by motherhood, by obligation, by being needed in ways that had nothing to do with desire.
And then Emily looked at her.
And JJ remembered she was still allowed to be wanted.
She checked her door. Half-open. Normal.
She checked the blinds. Not all the way down—just enough to make the light change.
She could see Emily across the bullpen if she leaned slightly, the familiar profile, the set of her shoulders, the way she looked too contained for the size of her feelings. Emily was reading something, brow furrowed, jaw tight like she was holding back a comment that would make Morgan laugh.
JJ’s throat tightened around nothing.
There was something obscene about wanting her here, in the middle of Quantico, in the middle of daylight—wanting her while everyone else talked about press schedules and warrants.
She couldn’t keep doing this in her head. It was eating her alive.
JJ stood, turned her body so the glass didn’t give her away, and faced the shadowed corner of her office. She didn’t think too hard about what she was doing, because thinking was where the guilt lived.
She unbuttoned her blouse just enough.
The black lace bra underneath wasn’t an accident. She’d picked it with a kind of quiet intent that made her stomach flip. It wasn’t practical. It wasn’t comfortable. It wasn’t for Will.
It was a message.
Her hands didn’t shake, not yet. But her pulse did—loud, insistent. Her body felt like it was leaning forward, already.
She lifted her phone.
A second of hesitation—sharp as a needle.
Henry’s face flashed in her mind. Will’s hand on the small of her back. The life she was supposed to want, the life she did want, in a different way. The life that fit around her like a uniform.
And then Emily’s voice—low and wrecked and real—like a secret JJ had been carrying for too long.
JJ took the photo.
Not porn. Not a performance. Just proof—lace, skin, the suggestion of her own softness offered like a dare. Offered like a confession she couldn’t speak out loud.
Her breath caught. She lowered the phone and stared at what she’d done.
It wasn’t the picture that made her feel exposed.
It was the fact that she’d wanted to send it to Emily more than she’d wanted to stop herself.
She swallowed hard, thumb hovering.
Needed her today.
Needed her every day.
But JJ would take what she could get.
Because wanting Emily didn’t care about promises. Wanting Emily didn’t care about timing. Wanting Emily didn’t care that JJ was standing in the heart of the BAU with a press binder on her desk and a baby at home and a life that could detonate if she made the wrong move.
JJ attached the photo.
Her thumb hovered over “send” long enough for her conscience to try one last time.
Then JJ made the decision anyway.
She hit send—
—and the ring on her finger caught on the edge of her phone case, a tiny snag of metal on plastic that felt louder than it should’ve. A nothing-sound. A nothing-moment.
A reminder.
JJ’s stomach turned, sharp and hot, as she slid the ring back into place with her thumb. As if she could put the promise where it belonged. As if she could re-seat it and make it mean what it was supposed to mean.
She buttoned her blouse.
Sat back down like nothing had happened.
And waited—heart loud in her ears, thighs tense with the kind of anticipation that felt like falling.
Across the bullpen, Emily’s desk phone buzzed.
The buzz on Emily’s desk phone hit like a live wire.
She didn’t flinch—she never flinched—but something in her went instantly still, tuned to a frequency no one else in the bullpen could hear. The little red light blinked. The screen flashed 1 NEW MESSAGE. JJ’s extension.
Emily stared at it for half a beat too long.
It wasn’t a voicemail. JJ didn’t leave voicemails. JJ didn’t leave anything that could be replayed, forwarded, misheard. JJ was careful in the way only people with something to lose ever learned to be.
Emily pressed the button anyway.
A single line of text scrolled across the tiny screen—too plain to be what it was, too innocent-looking to make her pulse kick.
Check your personal.
Emily’s throat went dry.
Her eyes flicked up automatically, a reflexive scan of the room—Morgan leaning back in his chair, Rossi mid-sentence with Hotch, Garcia’s voice carrying from her lair. Everyone in motion. Everyone in their own orbit. No one looking at her.
Still, Emily kept her face blank. Kept her hands steady. Kept her posture squared like nothing inside her had changed.
Under the desk, her BlackBerry vibrated.
Not a call. A picture message from JJ’s personal number—contraband delivered under the table.
Emily’s thumb moved before her brain could argue. She opened it.
And her breath caught—sharp, involuntary, humiliating in its honesty.
Black lace.
Skin warmed by office light.
The soft rise of JJ’s breasts framed so close it was almost cruel—close enough that Emily’s mind filled in everything that wasn’t shown. It wasn’t explicit. It didn’t need to be. The lace itself was a choice. An intention. A quiet declaration that JJ had done this on purpose and wanted Emily to know she’d done it on purpose.
Emily locked the screen like she could contain it that way.
Set the BlackBerry facedown like it might burn a hole through her desk.
It didn’t matter.
The image sat behind her eyes anyway, bright as a flare.
For the next hour, Emily was trapped inside her own body.
She tried every trick she’d ever learned: breathe in counts of four, anchor to details, re-read the same paragraph until it meant something. She wrote half a note in the margin that made no sense. She clicked through the same case photos twice. She nodded at Morgan when he said something she didn’t actually hear.
All of it was theater.
Because underneath her desk, underneath her composure, want kept rising—quiet at first, then insistent, then rude. A tightening low in her abdomen. A slow, relentless heat that made her feel too alive in a place where they dealt in death.
She shifted once, then again, crossing and uncrossing her legs with a care that would have looked casual to anyone else. The friction of her trousers was its own kind of torture—small enough to be survivable, sharp enough to make her lose her train of thought anyway.
Emily kept her expression neutral. She forced her gaze back to the file. She kept her hands where people could see them.
She didn’t look at JJ’s office for a long time.
She refused to.
Because she knew what she’d find.
Eventually, she gave in—just a glance through the glass walls, quick and controlled.
JJ was already watching.
Not openly. Not stupidly. Just… there, in the angle of her body, in the way her gaze held Emily like she owned the secret between them. Like she’d done this and wasn’t going to pretend otherwise.
Emily’s pulse jumped. Her jaw clenched. Heat pooled lower, heavier, as if her body recognized the invitation before her mind allowed it.
Her BlackBerry vibrated again.
A text this time. Two words.
Closet. Now.
Emily stared at the screen.
There was a part of her that wanted to laugh—because JJ didn’t command people. Not like this. JJ was diplomacy and polish and carefully chosen words.
So if JJ was doing this—if JJ was risking this—it meant JJ was at the edge of something too.
It meant JJ had decided.
Emily swallowed hard.
And behind the heat came the familiar spike of fear: glass walls, open space, eyes everywhere. The fear of being seen. The fear of being caught. The fear of wanting something so badly it made her stupid.
She didn’t answer the text. That was safer. That was smarter.
Instead, she stood.
Her legs felt normal until the moment she was upright—then they went subtly unsteady, like her body had been waiting for permission to betray her. Emily reached for the nearest excuse on her desk: a thin file folder, a pen, anything that made her movement look purposeful.
She walked like she wasn’t walking toward a decision that could ruin her.
She took the long way, just to make it believable. Nodded once at Rossi. Let her mouth form the shape of a normal sentence—“Just grabbing supplies”—to no one in particular. Let the words hang in the air like they were true.
The supply closet door was heavy. The latch clicked too loudly when she pulled it open.
She slipped inside, and the world compressed.
Old paper. Toner. Lemon polish. Sterile and absurdly clean for a space about to hold something filthy and human. Fluorescent light humming overhead. Shelves crowding them in from both sides, leaving only a narrow strip of air between bodies.
The door shut behind her.
And there JJ was—close enough that Emily could feel her warmth before either of them even moved.
Emily drew in one controlled breath, as if she could still negotiate with herself.
She couldn’t.
Not with black lace burned into her vision.
Not with JJ’s eyes on her like that.
Not with the word now still ringing in her bloodstream like an order she’d been aching to obey.
The click of the lock was the sound of a promise breaking.
The world outside—the bullpen, the BAU, the life they were supposed to be living—was a muffled, distant dream.
"JJ, we can't," Emily breathed, the words a desperate, useless plea, a final nod to the life she was supposed to want.
The profiler in her was already cataloging the risks: the thin door, the glass walls of the bullpen, the sheer, suicidal stupidity of this. But the rest of her, the part that had been staring at JJ’s picture for an hour, didn't care.
"We already are," JJ interrupted, her voice a low, confident hum that vibrated through the close space. She didn't give Emily a chance to argue.
She stepped forward, her body a firm, warm line against Emily's, and her hand moved with unerring precision to the front of Emily's trousers. She cupped the rigid, straining erection through the fabric, her palm pressing firmly against the thick, pulsing shaft. "And you're already hard, baby."
The words, combined with the proprietary pressure of her hand, shattered whatever fragile resistance Emily had left. A choked-off gasp escaped her lips.
JJ didn't wait for an invitation. She sank to her knees, her movements sure and unhurried, a stark contrast to the frantic beating of Emily's heart. The metallic rasp of her zipper was deafening in the quiet.
Then, the inferno. JJ's mouth was a cataclysm of wet, searing heat. It wasn't just soft; it was plush, yielding, a living sheath of flesh that seemed to know every sensitive spot, every ridge and vein.
The initial contact was a full-body seizure, a jolt of pure pleasure that made Emily's head snap back and thud against the metal shelving. A stack of cold case files teetered and crashed to the floor, a sound like a gunshot in the suffocating quiet.
They froze for only a millisecond before JJ could no longer be contained.
And that’s when the suction began.
It wasn't a pull; it was a devouring. A deep, internal vacuum that felt like it was anchoring itself to the very root of her being and attempting to draw her soul out through her flesh. It was a feeling of being unraveled, of every single nerve ending, from the tips of her toes to the follicles of her hair, being stretched towards a single, devastating point of focus in JJ's mouth.
Her hips bucked involuntarily, a desperate, mindless thrust, trying to bury herself deeper in that impossible, consuming heat.
JJ's hand, which had been resting on Emily's hip, began to move. Her fingers wrapped around the base of Emily's shaft, her grip firm and possessive.
And then Emily felt it—a cool, hard circle of metal sliding against her hot, slick skin. JJ's ring. The ring from Will. The symbol of the life she was supposed to be living. The cold metal was a brand, a psychological shock, a reminder of the lie, and the friction of it against her most sensitive flesh was a twisted, exquisite form of torture.
JJ pumped her hand in time with her mouth, the ring a constant, jarring presence with every downstroke, a reminder of the life she was choosing to betray in this very moment.
A phone shrilled in the bullpen, piercing the closet's silence like an alarm. Emily's heart seized, a frantic bird trapped in the cage of her ribs. She could feel the scream building in her lungs, a raw, primal sound of pure terror. But JJ didn't just not stop; she escalated.
The suction became a ferocious, unrelenting pull, a force so powerful it felt like her entire core was collapsing inward, her organs being rearranged by the sheer force of JJ's mouth. The fear was a shard of ice in her veins, but the suction was a white-hot star, and the two opposing forces created a singularity of pleasure that threatened to atomize her. The ringing stopped, and the silence that followed was somehow even more terrifying.
JJ began to move, her head a piston in the suffocating darkness. Each retreat was a violent, pulling vacuum that made Emily's vision swim with black and red spots. Each descent was a deep, claiming swallow that took her to the back of JJ's throat, the soft, yielding flesh of her palate a tantalizing promise. The wet, rhythmic sounds were a lewd symphony, amplified in the small space: the slick, sloppy noise of JJ's saliva, the soft, guttural moans vibrating in her own chest.
Emily's hand was clamped over her own mouth so hard her knuckles ached, but high, desperate whimpers still escaped, pathetic proof of her complete and total unraveling.
"Fuck, you're so loud," JJ growled, her voice ragged with lust.
The word was a key turning in a lock. Loud. The profiler in Emily snapped on, pleasure short-circuiting into cold tactical assessment. Not the risk of being caught, but the danger of being seen.
The image hit her: the door swinging open, Hotch's eyes dropping, the clinical shift as he processed not just insubordination, but her anatomy. It wasn't shame; it was a threat, the kind of exposure that turned a guarded secret into a weapon.
Her body went rigid, heat replaced by a shard of ice. She tried to pull back, a desperate attempt to hide.
But she couldn't.
Before the panic could take hold, JJ slammed her mouth down, taking her to the hilt. The head of Emily's cock hit the back of her throat, and the convulsive swallow that followed was a clenching, rhythmic agony—an anchor in the storm of fear.
JJ felt it immediately in the sudden stillness of her body. She slowed, her mouth becoming gentler, a comfort more than a conquest. She pulled back just enough to speak, her lips a soft breath against Emily's skin.
"Hey," she whispered. "I've got you."
Her hand moved to Emily's lower back, a firm, grounding pressure.
"Just you and me," she murmured, before taking her back into her mouth with a deep, slow possessiveness that was a promise, a shield. In the suffocating darkness, JJ's words were the only thing that felt real. And for the first time, Emily let herself believe them.
A muffled voice passed by the door, discussing victimology, using words like "subjugation" and "control." The clinical, detached language was a grotesque counterpoint to the raw, primal act happening just feet away. The juxtaposition was a psychological aphrodisiac so potent it made Emily dizzy. JJ's suction felt like a rebellion against the cold logic of their world, a filthy, beautiful secret being violently extracted from the heart of the FBI itself.
Emily could feel the orgasm building not in her groin, but in her spine. It was a tidal wave of electricity, coiling at the base of her skull and preparing to sweep her away. She was losing herself, dissolving into the sensation, into the danger, into her. The tension was unbearable, a tightly wound spring ready to snap. She had to warn her, had to give her the choice, even as her body screamed for release.
"I'm gonna fucking come, Jay," Emily choked out, her voice a strained, ragged whisper against her own hand. The words were torn from her, a desperate, raw confession. "I'm gonna fucking come in your mouth."
It was a surrender. A plea. A final, undeniable declaration of her unraveling.
JJ's only response was a deep, guttural moan that vibrated around Emily's cock. The sound was pure, unadulterated encouragement, a wanton, willing acceptance of everything Emily was about to give her. It was a yes. It was a take me.
And that was the detonation.
The vibration, the permission, the sheer, unbridled want in JJ's response sent Emily over the edge. The first spasm hit her like a physical blow, a violent convulsion that started deep in her gut and rocketed up her spine. Her body went rigid, her back arching off the cold metal of the shelving unit, a silent scream tearing from her throat as her hand clamped harder over her mouth.
Then, the flood. It wasn't just a release; it was a breaking of a dam. The first thick, viscous rope of come hit the back of JJ's throat with enough force to make her gag, but it was immediately followed by a gushing, torrential surge. Emily could feel herself pulsing, again and again, each spasm pumping an impossible amount of fluid from her body. It was a wet, messy, uncontrollable deluge.
The rhythmic contraction of JJ's throat was frantic now, working overtime to swallow the sheer volume. The suction became a desperate, pulling vacuum, trying to keep up with the flood. Emily could hear the wet, sloppy sounds of JJ's efforts, the occasional soft gag as she was overwhelmed.
It was a messy, filthy, and utterly glorious surrender. The feeling was one of being completely and utterly drained, of having her very essence siphoned out of her in a rushing, gushing torrent. A thick, warm trickle escaped the corner of JJ's mouth, snaking down her chin and dripping onto her shirt, a testament to the sheer, unrestrained volume of Emily's release.
As the final, weaker pulses subsided, leaving Emily trembling and weak, JJ continued to suck, her mouth becoming gentler, but no less possessive. She was cleaning, lapping up the mess with her tongue, her actions slow and deliberate. The sensation was almost too much; a tingling, hypersensitive aftershock that made Emily's legs tremble uncontrollably. She was completely at JJ's mercy, a spent shell in the darkness.
Only when she was certain she had taken everything did JJ slowly, carefully pull back. The sudden cool air on Emily's wet, sensitive skin was a shock. Emily couldn't see her, but she could feel her gaze. She could hear her swallow one last time, a final, possessive act that echoed in the sudden, ringing silence of the closet.
Then, JJ's hand came up to her own face, and Emily heard the soft, wet sound of her fingers gathering the escaped trickle from her chin before she licked them clean. Emily was hollowed out. She was hers.
But Emily wasn't done. Her body was a live wire, humming with a post-orgasmic energy that demanded reciprocity. She reached down, her hands finding JJ's shoulders and pulling her up. JJ rose, her body pressing against Emily's in the cramped space.
Emily's fingers, still trembling, moved to the front of JJ's blouse. She didn't fumble. She was precise, her movements driven by a singular, burning need. She undid the buttons just enough, parting the fabric to reveal the black lace bra from the picture—the one that had been torturing her for an hour. The sight of it, the promise of it, made Emily's own spent cock give a weak, interested throb.
She leaned down, her lips finding the hard peak of JJ's nipple through the lace. The fabric was rough against her tongue, a delicious friction that made JJ gasp, her head falling back against the shelves. Emily sucked, hard, pulling the sensitive bud into her mouth, lavishing it with her tongue until the lace was damp and JJ was squirming against her. The taste of JJ's skin, combined with the faint, clean scent of the laundry detergent, was intoxicating.
As her mouth worked on JJ's breast, Emily's other hand was busy. She deftly undid the button on JJ's trousers, her fingers sliding beneath the waistband of her panties. She was immediately greeted by the slick, swollen heat of JJ's arousal.
Emily didn't hesitate. She slid two fingers inside JJ, feeling the tight, wet heat clench around them. At the same time, her thumb found JJ's clit, a hard, sensitive nub that she began to rub in slow, deliberate circles.
JJ's breath hitched, her hips rocking against Emily's hand. Emily could feel the tension building in JJ's body, the same tension that had been coiling in her own moments before.
"Come for me, JJ," Emily whispered, her voice a low, guttural command against the damp lace of JJ's bra. "Right here. Right now."
JJ's response was a choked-off moan, her body tensing as Emily's fingers moved faster, her thumb pressing harder. The wet sounds of Emily's fingers pumping in and out of JJ were a lewd counterpoint to the muffled office noises beyond the door.
JJ's hips bucked, her body arching as the orgasm tore through her. A silent scream tore from her throat, her body convulsing as she came hard against Emily's hand. Emily could feel the wave of wetness that flooded her fingers, a testament to JJ's pleasure.
The spasms didn't stop; they intensified, a second, deeper wave of contractions milking Emily's fingers, a desperate, rhythmic clenching that was a visceral echo of the pleasure still rippling through her. Emily felt the slick heat gush again, a fresh, warm flood that coated her palm and dripped down her wrist, a raw, undeniable proof of JJ's complete and utter surrender.
They stood there for a long moment, their bodies trembling, their breaths ragged. The silence was broken only by the sound of their hearts beating in tandem. Emily slowly withdrew her hand, bringing her fingers to her lips and tasting JJ's essence. It was a final, possessive act, a promise of more to come. And in the heart of the BAU, surrounded by the monsters they hunted, they had found a new kind of danger, a new kind of pleasure, and a new kind of surrender.
The closet stayed quiet in the aftermath in a way that felt almost cruel.
Not silence like peace—silence like evidence.
Emily stood with her forehead tipped toward the metal shelving, breathing through her nose like she could will her pulse back into something respectable. The fluorescent light above them buzzed faintly, steady and indifferent. Somewhere in the bullpen a printer churned, a phone rang and stopped, footsteps passed and kept going. The BAU kept existing as if nothing had just happened inside a supply closet that smelled like lemon polish and old paper.
JJ didn’t move for a second. Not because she couldn’t—because she was listening, too.
When she finally did shift, it was small and practiced. Controlled. The same economy of motion she used when she walked into press conferences and turned horror into soundbites.
She reached up and smoothed Emily’s collar first. Not flirtatious. Not showy. Just—necessary. A correction. A reset.
Emily huffed a quiet laugh that wasn’t really a laugh.
“You’re…” Her voice came out rougher than she wanted. She cleared her throat. Tried again, softer. “You’re ridiculous.”
JJ’s mouth twitched. “You’re the one who came when I told you to.”
Emily’s eyes flicked to JJ—sharp, startled, almost offended.
Then her gaze dropped, involuntary, to JJ’s hand.
The ring.
JJ was twisting it without realizing, thumb rubbing the metal like it was a worry stone, like she could grind the promise down into something that didn’t cut.
Emily’s stomach turned—hot and sour at once.
JJ caught her looking. For a beat, something honest crossed her face: guilt, yes, but also that stubborn, bright defiance that made her dangerous.
“Don’t,” JJ murmured, like she could hear the thought Emily hadn’t said.
Emily swallowed. “I didn’t say anything.”
JJ stepped closer anyway, close enough to make Emily’s body remember before her mind could stop it. She lifted a hand and pressed two fingers to Emily’s sternum, right over her heartbeat—grounding, not teasing.
“I know,” JJ said, low. “But you were about to.”
Emily let out a slow breath.
Her throat tightened around words she didn’t want to give oxygen to. Hotch’s face. The door. The light. All that terror sitting in her ribcage like a trapped animal.
She forced her voice into its flattest register. “We need to—” She gestured vaguely at both of them. “Fix.”
JJ nodded once, immediate. Professional.
She reached for the box of tissues on the shelf like it was the most normal thing in the world. Like people did this in supply closets every day and then walked back out into daylight.
Emily watched her hands. JJ’s hands were steady now, which almost made it worse—how quickly she could become composed again, how quickly she could become JJ.
Emily tried to do the same.
She straightened her jacket. Smoothed the front. Breathed. Kept her shoulders squared. Counted her own breaths like she was in the field again, not in a locked closet with her life vibrating under her skin.
JJ handed her a tissue without looking at her like she didn’t want to see the gratitude in Emily’s face. Like she didn’t want either of them to feel too much.
Emily took it anyway.
Their fingers brushed.
The tiniest contact.
Still electric.
JJ’s eyes lifted briefly—dark, searching. “Are you okay?”
Emily almost snapped yes out of habit.
Instead, she said the truer thing in the smallest voice. “I don’t know.”
JJ didn’t flinch.
She stepped in closer, and for a second her hand hovered, as if she was deciding how much comfort she was allowed to give without making it into a moment they couldn’t walk back from.
Then she simply rested her palm against Emily’s side, warm through fabric. A touch that said I’m here. A touch that could still be disguised as accidental if someone opened the door.
“You are,” JJ said softly. “You’re okay.”
Emily’s jaw tightened. “You don’t get to decide that.”
JJ looked up at her, unblinking.
“No,” she agreed. “But I get to remind you.”
Emily stared at her.
At the mouth that could text Closet. Now. like a command and then turn around and sound like this—quiet and sure and stubbornly tender.
“Jennifer,” Emily said, low, warning.
JJ’s eyes softened at the name. Just the tiniest crack.
“Don’t call me that,” JJ murmured. “Not right now.”
Emily exhaled, and something in her loosened. Not all the way. But enough.
JJ reached up and fixed Emily’s hair—just a quick smoothing at the temple, the kind of touch that could be explained away as “you’ve got toner dust” if anyone saw it.
Then JJ moved to the door, put her ear near it, and listened.
Emily watched the line of her back, the way she held herself. Media liaison. Mother. A woman who had learned how to make fear look like confidence.
JJ glanced over her shoulder. “If we walk out at the same time, it’s stupid.”
Emily’s mouth twisted. “We already crossed ‘stupid’ about ten minutes ago.”
JJ gave her a look that almost smiled. “Don’t make me laugh.”
She cracked the door open, checked the hall, then looked back at Emily like she was trying to memorize her in the fluorescent hum.
“Maybe I’ll meet you in here again sometime?” JJ said, light on the surface—carefully, like it was a joke she could take back if she needed to.
Emily’s answer came faster than it should’ve, sharper than it had any right to be.
“Only if you’re lucky, Jareau.”
JJ’s smile turned small and satisfied—no triumph in it, just that unmistakable spark of mine.
“I’m going first,” she said, voice already smoothing into work. “Wait thirty seconds.”
Emily didn’t move. “JJ—”
JJ opened the door a crack, peered out, and her whole face shifted into neutral. Calm. Blank. Beautifully boring. She glanced back one more time, the softness returning for half a heartbeat.
Then she slipped out into the bullpen like she belonged there, like she hadn’t just detonated a quiet bomb in the heart of the BAU. The door clicked shut again.
Emily counted.
One Mississippi. Two. Three—
She listened to the world.
A chair scraped. Someone laughed. Paper rustled. The fluorescent lights hummed like they always had.
At thirty, Emily opened the door and stepped out.
Morgan glanced up from his desk, eyebrows lifting like he was about to say something. Emily fixed him with a look that had ended interrogations.
Morgan’s mouth snapped shut. He blinked. Then, wisely, looked back down at his file.
Emily walked past JJ’s glass office without turning her head.
She didn’t need to.
She could feel JJ watching anyway.
And under the weight of that gaze—under the ring-shaped promise on JJ’s hand, under the locked door they’d left behind—Emily’s body still thrummed with one impossible, simple truth:
She would. Again.
She already had.